Oh ! but it may be she did not know his voice, and therefore she would not open. No chaste wife will at unseasonable hours arise and open her doors unto a stranger, especially in her husband's absence. Oh yes, she knew his voice : verse 2, 'It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh.' She was not so fast asleep, but that she knew the voice of her beloved from all other voices, and could tell every tittle that he said.' The calls of Christ were so strong, so loud, and his pulsations so mighty, that she could not but know and confess, that it was the voice of her beloved, though she was not so respectful and dutiful as to obey that voice.
Oh ! but it may be Christ knocked and called, like a friend in his jour- ney, only to inquire how it was with her, or to speak to her at the window. Oh no ! he speaks plainly, he speaks with authority, ' Open to me.'
Oh ! but it may be she had no power to open the door. Oh yes ; for when he commands his people to open, he lends them a key to open the door, that he may enter in, Philip, i. 6, 13 ; 1 Cor. xv. 10. Infused grace is a living principle that will enable the soul to open to Christ. If a man be not a free agent to work and act by the helps of grace received, to what purpose are counsels, commands, exhortations and directions, given to perform this, and that, and the other work ? And certainly it is our greatest honour and happiness in this world to co-operate with God in those things which concern his own glory, and our own internal and eternal good.
Oh ! but it may be Christ had given his spouse some distaste, or it may be he had let fall some hard words, or some unkind speeches, which made her a little froward and pettish. Oh no ! for he owns her as his beloved, and courts her highly, with the most winning and amicable terms of love: 'My sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled, or my perfect one.' He calls her so for her dovelike simplicity, purity, and integrity. All these endearing and honouring titles, are the rhetoric of divine
Mat. VI. 6.] the privy key of heaven. 245
love ; and should have been as so many sacred engagements upon her, to open to her beloved.
Oh ! but it may be Christ was too quick for her, it may be he gave but a knock and a call, and was gone before she could rise and open the door. O no ! Christ stayed till his head was filled with dew, and his •locks with the drops of the night ; which most passionate expression notes the tender goodness, patience, and gentleness of our Lord Jesus, who endures far greater and harder things for his spouse's sake, than ever Jacob did for his Eachel's salce. After Christ had suffered much for her sake, and waited her leisure a long while, she very unkindly, and very unmannerly, and unworthily turns her back upon all his sweet and comfortable compellations, and blessed and bleeding embracements, and turns him off to look [for] his lodging in some other place ; so that he might well have said. Is this thy kindness to thy friend, thy husband, thy Lord, to suffer him to stand bareheaded, and that in foul weather, yea, in the night time, wooing, entreating, and beseeching admittance; and yet to turn him off as one in whom thy soul could take no pleasure ?
Now, if you will but seriously weigh all these circumstances in tlie balance of the sanctuary, you may run and read the fault and folly, the weakness and madness, the slightness and laziness of the spouse ; and by her you may make a judgment of those sad and sinful distempers that may seize upon the best of saints, and see how ready the flesh is to frame excuses ; and all to keep the soul off from duty, and the doors fast bolted against the Lord Jesus.
It is sad when men are well enough to sit, and chat, and trade in their shops, but are not well enough to pray in their closets. Certainly, that man's heart is not right with God, at least at this time, who, under all his bodily distempers, can maintain and keep up his public trade with men, but is not well enough to maintain his private trade with heaven. Our bodies are but dirt, handsomely tempered, and artificially formed ; we derive our pedigree from the dirt, and are akin to clay. One calls the body ' the blot of nature ;' another calls it the ' the soul's beast,' ' a sack of dung,' ' worms' meat ;' another calls it ' a prison, ' a sepulchre ;' and Paul calls it ' a body of vileness.' Now for a man to make so much ado about the distempers of his body to excuse the neglects of his soul, is an evil made up of many evils. But really, sir, I am so ill, and my body is so distempered and indisposed, that I am not able to mind or meddle with the least things of the world ! Well ! if this be so, then know that God hath on purpose knocked thee off from the things of this world, that thou mayest look the more effectually after the things of another world. The design of God in all the distempers that are upon thy body, is to wind thee more off from thy worldly trade, and to work thee to follow thine heavenly trade more close. Many a man had never found the way to his closet, if God by bodily distempers had not turned him out of his shop, his trade, his business, his all, &c.
Well, Christians ! remember this once for all, if your indisposition to closet prayer doth really arise from bodily distempers, then you may be confident that the Lord will pity you much, and bear with you much, and kindly accept of a little. You know how affectionately parents and ingenuous masters do carry it towards their children and servants, when they are under bodily distempers and indisposition ; and you may be
246 THE PRIVY KEY OF HEAVEN. [MAT. VI. 6.
confident that God will never carry it worse towards you than they do towards them. Ponder often upon that Ezek. xxxiv. 4, 16, 21, 22. But,
(6.) Siocthly, and lastly, 1 shall answer this objection by way of dis- tinction, thus :